ByMatthew ShaerSeptember 10, 2011

Sprint iPhone 5 rumors have been gurglingaround the Web for a while now, but today comes the next best thing to an actual launch party – a report from Bloomberg News, sourced to anonymous insiders, confirming the autumn arrival of a Sprint-powered Apple handset.

Interestingly, according to Bloomberg, the Sprint iPhone will be available with an unlimited data plan, which would help set the device apart from rival AT&T and Verizon-powered devices.

"It’s a competitive disadvantage if your two larger competitors have the iPhone and you don’t. Getting the iPhone closes that gap," Matthew Thornton, an analyst at Avian Securities LLC, told Bloomberg. True. And the gap would conceivably close that much faster if Sprint offers what Verizon and AT&T currently do not: The ability to slurp down an unlimited amount of multimedia content, for a single, flat fee.

Horizons readers will remember that both AT&T and Verizon once offered unlimited data plans, although in recent months, both carriers shifted to tiered plans. It's worth noting here that only serious data hogs really need an unlimited plan – the lowest of the current Verizon plans, for instance, sells for $30 a month, and provides for up to 2GB of data, which is plenty for light to regular users. Still, "unlimited" does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

On a semi-related note, most of us are pretty sure that the iPhone 5 is coming this fall. What we don't know is what the iPhone 5 will look like. Will it have a tapered, tear-drop shape? Will it look more or less like the current iPhone 4?

Drop us a line in the comments section, and let us know what you think.

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